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Should the government be hiding aliens? · Daniel and Kelly’s Extraordinary Universe

0:07
Speaker 1: Is the truth really out there? Down here on Earth?
0:11
Speaker 1: We are slaving away incrementally trying to unravel the secrets
0:16
Speaker 1: of the universe. What's it all made out of? How
0:19
Speaker 1: big is the universe? How does life start? But what
0:23
Speaker 1: if aliens already have these answers? And what if they
0:28
Speaker 1: are here on Earth and have already shared the deep
0:33
Speaker 1: secrets of the universe with members of our government? And
0:38
Speaker 1: what if the government is keeping those secrets from us?
0:41
Speaker 1: It makes me want to scream with frustration. How could
0:45
Speaker 1: they do that? Why would they tell me? Tell me,
0:47
Speaker 1: tell me, tell me? I desperately want to know. On
0:50
Speaker 1: today's episode, we'll explore this question. Is it ever reasonable
0:55
Speaker 1: for the government to keep such massive secrets from the public?
0:58
Speaker 1: Is it even plausible that they could do so? And,
1:01
Speaker 1: in an attempt to stay culturally relevant, we're going to
1:04
Speaker 1: review the recent movie on the topic, Disclosure Day by
1:08
Speaker 1: Steven Spielberg. Welcome to Daniel and Kelly's Extraordinary Alien Universe. Hello.
1:27
Speaker 2: I'm Kelly Waiter Smith. I study parasites and space and
1:29
Speaker 2: I'm excited today because I'm excited for Daniel that we're
1:33
Speaker 2: talking about Daniel's favorite topic.
1:35
Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Daniel I'm a particle physicist who loves thinking
1:38
Speaker 1: about aliens. And though I've been working with and for
1:42
Speaker 1: the government my whole life, I know zero government secrets. Oh.
1:46
Speaker 2: I mean that's kind of disappointed. Are you just not
1:48
Speaker 2: high level enough?
1:49
Speaker 1: Well? Number one is I have no clearance because I
1:51
Speaker 1: have three passports. And also I have no interest in
1:55
Speaker 1: working on anything dangerous or anything that could be used
1:58
Speaker 1: to kill people or anything like that, So that makes
2:01
Speaker 1: me not a very good repository for government secrets. Also,
2:04
Speaker 1: I'm not a big fan of secrecy, and I'm not
2:06
Speaker 1: greatly keeping secrets, So anybody out.
2:08
Speaker 2: There, I'll keep that in mind.
2:10
Speaker 3: Wait.
2:11
Speaker 2: Wait, so I've just discovered a huge hypocrisy though at
2:14
Speaker 2: the bottom of Daniel. And here's the huge hypocrisy. I've
2:18
Speaker 2: heard you say on multiple occasions that you would never
2:21
Speaker 2: want to work on like anything that could be used
2:23
Speaker 2: for weapons or anything that could be used to hurt humanity.
2:26
Speaker 2: But I've also heard you say on multiple occasions that
2:28
Speaker 2: you would sell the entire human race for the opportunity
2:31
Speaker 2: to meet aliens. So is it just like you don't
2:34
Speaker 2: want to help your government or you just want to
2:37
Speaker 2: make sure it helps you In particular, what is the
2:39
Speaker 2: how do you I.
2:40
Speaker 1: Think that's now that's totally consistent. I believe in openness
2:44
Speaker 1: and the flow of information, and that means inviting the
2:48
Speaker 1: aliens to come talk to us, even if we can't
2:50
Speaker 1: be sure that they're going to behave themselves when they
2:52
Speaker 1: get here, and they might nuke half of Earth from space.
2:56
Speaker 2: You know, you are nuts.
2:58
Speaker 1: I just.
3:01
Speaker 2: I can't get around that. But here's my question for
3:03
Speaker 2: you for today. Huh, if aliens came to Earth, who
3:07
Speaker 2: do you think they would want to see first? And
3:10
Speaker 2: before you say physicists, because I'm sure like try to
3:13
Speaker 2: work through is that a selfish answer or do you
3:15
Speaker 2: think that's the real answer? The right answer?
3:17
Speaker 1: Well, that's a great question, and I think it's basically
3:20
Speaker 1: an impossible question because you're asking me to put myself
3:23
Speaker 1: in the minds of these beings and understand who they are,
3:27
Speaker 1: what they want when they get here. I think it's
3:29
Speaker 1: basically impossible. So I'm going to reject the question answer
3:32
Speaker 1: a different one, which is if we arrive at some
3:36
Speaker 1: alien planet, who would we want to speak to? Right?
3:39
Speaker 1: I think that's the only one I could really give
3:40
Speaker 1: an answer to me, And that's a good question, and
3:44
Speaker 1: I think it's probably also an impossible one, because you're
3:47
Speaker 1: already like mapping human social structure onto the aliens. Like,
3:52
Speaker 1: even assuming that there are the same categories, are there physicists,
3:55
Speaker 1: are their mathematicians, are their politicians? You know, even just
3:59
Speaker 1: assuming that there are structures you could access or even
4:02
Speaker 1: think about, is already going further than I think we
4:05
Speaker 1: have the basis to go. But all right, I've done
4:08
Speaker 1: enough rejecting the question, what would I actually say? Who
4:11
Speaker 1: would I want to talk to? I mean, I think
4:13
Speaker 1: number one would have to be linguists, right, You got
4:16
Speaker 1: to establish communication first. You can't just say, like, bring
4:19
Speaker 1: me to your mathematicians or something, and you have no
4:22
Speaker 1: way to communicate because obviously our symbols are going to
4:24
Speaker 1: be different from their symbols. So you got to establish
4:27
Speaker 1: the primitives. And so I think the people who have
4:30
Speaker 1: thought about how to talk to weirdos, those are the
4:33
Speaker 1: people you want to talk to first. Not the politicians,
4:36
Speaker 1: not the mathematicians, not the gymnasts, probably not even the
4:40
Speaker 1: alien parasitologists.
4:41
Speaker 2: Oh no, I thought we were going to be first
4:44
Speaker 2: in line. Who doesn't want to talk to the ecological parasitologists?
4:49
Speaker 2: All right. I think that's a good answer.
4:50
Speaker 1: I mean I do. It's just like not top of
4:52
Speaker 1: the list.
4:53
Speaker 2: I mean probably top five, yeah, exactly, maybe top three.
4:58
Speaker 1: All right, Well, then my question for you, Kelly is
5:00
Speaker 1: have you ever been in the situation where you have
5:03
Speaker 1: an important secret to keep?
5:05
Speaker 2: I guess it depends on how you define importance.
5:09
Speaker 1: Hmm. Sounds like a dodge.
5:12
Speaker 2: It has been important from the perspective of like my
5:15
Speaker 2: family or something, okay, but not important from the perspective
5:18
Speaker 2: of like anybody outside my family would care, you know,
5:22
Speaker 2: like I'm not supposed to tell you the topic of
5:24
Speaker 2: my next book. I'm not supposed to say that on air.
5:28
Speaker 1: Oh that's interesting. So you do have a secret that
5:30
Speaker 1: you're being paid to keep interesting, I.
5:33
Speaker 2: Get, But is it important? Like, is anybody going to
5:37
Speaker 2: lose sleep for the next two years while I'm writing
5:39
Speaker 2: the book? Probably not? Probably not.
5:42
Speaker 1: So you've never been like in possession of important scientific information,
5:46
Speaker 1: like there's a parasite that's going to ravage lettuce in
5:50
Speaker 1: the United States. But I can't tell anybody.
5:52
Speaker 2: No, No, I don't have I'm not an important person
5:55
Speaker 2: like that. But what about you? It seems like you
5:57
Speaker 2: actively avoid being that kind of important person.
6:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's true. Although I have had some scientific information
6:04
Speaker 1: I was told to keep to myself. For example, before
6:08
Speaker 1: we publish big results, we embargo them so they're released
6:12
Speaker 1: through the proper channels and all this kind of stuff.
6:14
Speaker 1: For example, when we discovered the Higgs boson, we knew
6:18
Speaker 1: that we had it before we announced it, and that's
6:21
Speaker 1: because we wanted to coordinate with the other group and
6:23
Speaker 1: have a common announcement and not have some silly race
6:25
Speaker 1: to the podium and stuff like that. Although I will
6:28
Speaker 1: admit on air that I broke that. I called up
6:31
Speaker 1: my buddy on the other experiment and we shared our
6:34
Speaker 1: information with each other, because you know, we'd seen several
6:38
Speaker 1: false positives. We'd seen signals for the Higgs before, which
6:41
Speaker 1: then went away with more data, and so I was like,
6:44
Speaker 1: is this one real? And the only way to really
6:46
Speaker 1: know if it's real is to see if the other
6:48
Speaker 1: independent experiment got the same result. That's why we have
6:52
Speaker 1: two independent experiments, and that's why it's important to keep
6:55
Speaker 1: them independent. The people should not talk to each other,
6:57
Speaker 1: should not bias each other.
6:58
Speaker 2: Well, so did you ruin?
7:02
Speaker 1: You're asking me, did Daniel ruin a ten billion dollar
7:05
Speaker 1: science experiment because he was impatient.
7:11
Speaker 2: Even if the answer was yes, you would say, no,
7:12
Speaker 2: is that what I'm hearing?
7:14
Speaker 1: No, I'll totally admit to having done that, but you know,
7:16
Speaker 1: it was only like a week or two before the
7:18
Speaker 1: official announcement, so it was too late to like really
7:20
Speaker 1: change any results or actually influence the science. And I
7:23
Speaker 1: should have waited, I admit, but I couldn't help myself.
7:26
Speaker 1: And I'm sure I was not the only one. I
7:28
Speaker 1: mean there were situations where, like a married couple were
7:32
Speaker 1: on opposite sides of this. I'm sure they talked about it,
7:35
Speaker 1: you know, like how do you keep that seeker from
7:37
Speaker 1: your spouse? Like we're about to announce the discovery of
7:39
Speaker 1: the Higgs. Hope you guys have it too wise.
7:42
Speaker 2: We're scooping you, right, Why do you have that grin
7:45
Speaker 2: on your face over coffee? Like yeah, if you can
7:48
Speaker 2: read your partner, you know. Yeah.
7:50
Speaker 1: And in some sense, this is an important piece of
7:52
Speaker 1: information in that we want to understand the universe and
7:55
Speaker 1: we want to do it right, and we want to
7:57
Speaker 1: be responsible about it. But you know, it's not going
7:59
Speaker 1: to like kill anybody or spread information. They could be
8:03
Speaker 1: used to kill anybody. Or create any danger, and so
8:06
Speaker 1: the stakes are high scientifically but not existentially.
8:10
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, yeah, fair enough, all right, And so you
8:13
Speaker 2: can't be trusted, got it.
8:16
Speaker 1: I can be trusted to tell you all the dirt,
8:18
Speaker 1: all right. If I have a secret, you know I'm
8:20
Speaker 1: gonna be telling it.
8:21
Speaker 2: So way to turn a negative into a positive, man,
8:24
Speaker 2: I'm just so honest. That okay? All right? But today
8:29
Speaker 2: the secret we're talking about is aliens. Yes, So why
8:33
Speaker 2: are we talking about aliens today Other than the fact
8:35
Speaker 2: that that is what you literally think about twenty four cents?
8:38
Speaker 1: We're talking about aliens today because there was a movie
8:41
Speaker 1: that came out recently which was kind of a big deal,
8:43
Speaker 1: Steven Spielberg's movie Disclosure Day, which is all about aliens
8:48
Speaker 1: and whether the government is hiding information about aliens and
8:52
Speaker 1: how that might play out. And it's a Spielberg movie
8:55
Speaker 1: and it's about aliens. And a bunch of listeners wrote
8:58
Speaker 1: to me and said, would you think of the movie?
9:00
Speaker 1: And so I thought, Hey, I'm gonna watch this movie
9:01
Speaker 1: and let's do a little review. But also let's talk
9:04
Speaker 1: about some of the really interesting issues that are raised
9:07
Speaker 1: by the movie about government secrecy. Should the government keep secrets?
9:11
Speaker 1: What kind of secrets can the government justifiably keep? Et cetera,
9:14
Speaker 1: et cetera, plus an excuse to talk about aliens?
9:18
Speaker 2: Absolutely, And you sent me an outline of this and
9:21
Speaker 2: I wrote back and I was like, are you sure
9:22
Speaker 2: we want an episode around a movie that maybe no
9:24
Speaker 2: what's heard of? And you pretty much wrote back and
9:26
Speaker 2: were like, are you kidding?
9:29
Speaker 3: What?
9:29
Speaker 1: Do you live on a farm in Virginia or something like?
9:32
Speaker 1: Connected from culture?
9:34
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I know nothing about this movie, and so
9:37
Speaker 2: I will play. I don't think actually I'm representing a
9:41
Speaker 2: large swath of the population because it sounds like everyone's
9:44
Speaker 2: heard of this movie. But anyway, I'll let you know
9:46
Speaker 2: if there's a spoiler in there, because I haven't seen it, right,
9:51
Speaker 2: But let's throw to the extraordinaries and see what they
9:54
Speaker 2: have to say. So you asked them, if the government
9:57
Speaker 2: is aware of aliens, should they disclosed to the public?
10:01
Speaker 1: Exactly. I was not interested in people's theories about whether
10:05
Speaker 1: the government has information about aliens, more about this question
10:09
Speaker 1: of whether they should disclose it if they did have it.
10:12
Speaker 1: So thank you very much to all the extraordinaries who
10:14
Speaker 1: answer these questions. And again, if you would like to
10:16
Speaker 1: join this, You are very very welcome. Just write to
10:19
Speaker 1: us to questions at Daniel and Kelly dot org and
10:22
Speaker 1: you can get these questions in your inbox. In the meantime,
10:25
Speaker 1: think about it for a moment. What do you think
10:27
Speaker 1: if the government is aware of aliens, do they have
10:30
Speaker 1: a responsibility to tell us? Here's what the extraordinaries had
10:34
Speaker 1: to say. Oh hmmm, yes, one percent. Why should governments
10:39
Speaker 1: have all the fun Immediate non disclosure to the general
10:42
Speaker 1: public would be prudent to determine if they pose any
10:44
Speaker 1: danger to Earth and or its inhabitants. People absolutely want
10:48
Speaker 1: to know, so yes, the government should disclose to the
10:51
Speaker 1: public if they are aware of alien visitors. I feel
10:54
Speaker 1: like it's less of a question of should they than
10:56
Speaker 1: could they stop themselves. Cover Ups never go well for
11:00
Speaker 1: anyone involved. But if this is a dark forest situation,
11:05
Speaker 1: maybe keeping everyone dumb and stumb is wiser.
11:09
Speaker 3: I've had top secret security clearances for many years. I
11:15
Speaker 3: believe the government does not know that aliens exist, and
11:19
Speaker 3: if it did, it would and should disclose.
11:23
Speaker 1: Absolutely, they should disclose it to the public, assuming the
11:26
Speaker 1: air proof. I would say yes, mostly because I don't
11:29
Speaker 1: really see what's the case for not disclosing it. I mean,
11:33
Speaker 1: I don't really see the negative consequences.
11:36
Speaker 2: Okay, that was quite a range of responses. And also
11:40
Speaker 2: it's interesting to me to know that we have listeners
11:42
Speaker 2: who have had top security clearances.
11:46
Speaker 1: And are willing to disclose what they know on the air.
11:49
Speaker 1: Look at that.
11:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess saying that you have top security clearances
11:53
Speaker 2: doesn't necessarily mean that you know about the alien question.
11:56
Speaker 2: Like I have people rate me all the time and
11:57
Speaker 2: be like, I'm a scientist, let me tell you about parasites.
12:00
Speaker 2: And I'm like, well, not all sites just know about parasites.
12:03
Speaker 2: But anyway, so, yeah, what did you think of these answers?
12:06
Speaker 1: Well, I think a lot of them are saying tell me,
12:08
Speaker 1: tell me, tell me, right, there's a lot of self
12:10
Speaker 1: interest in these answers. People want the government to disclose
12:13
Speaker 1: because they want to know, and it's hard to imagine
12:16
Speaker 1: the government having this information and not sharing it with us.
12:18
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, imagine that scenario. That's terrible, But also
12:22
Speaker 1: a lot of good arguments that there isn't a great
12:25
Speaker 1: argument for non disclosure, which is the topic we're going
12:28
Speaker 1: to dig into in detail today. So I think these
12:31
Speaker 1: are great.
12:31
Speaker 2: Responses well as always, and if you want to lend
12:34
Speaker 2: your voice, you should write us at questions at Daniel
12:36
Speaker 2: and Kelly dot org and just let us know you
12:38
Speaker 2: want your email address added to the list of questions
12:41
Speaker 2: that we send out approximately once a week. All right, So, Daniel,
12:46
Speaker 2: I live under a rack with my fingers in my ears.
12:50
Speaker 2: I haven't heard of this movie. Give me the lowdown
12:53
Speaker 2: on this movie.
12:54
Speaker 1: So the movie is Disclosure Day. It's written and directed
12:58
Speaker 1: by Steven Spielberg. I hope you heard of him.
13:00
Speaker 2: Maybe yes, yes, yes, yes, I was bored. I was
13:02
Speaker 2: a child in you know, the nineties and the early
13:04
Speaker 2: two thousands.
13:05
Speaker 1: All right. And it's his response essentially to the disclosures.
13:09
Speaker 1: In twenty seventeen, there were the series of articles in
13:13
Speaker 1: like The New York Times and other mainstream media about
13:17
Speaker 1: these videos and reports by navy pilots that they were
13:20
Speaker 1: like seeing things in the air they couldn't explain, and
13:23
Speaker 1: there were some videos of like stuff moving in a
13:26
Speaker 1: weird way that didn't make any sense or didn't line
13:29
Speaker 1: up with any known craft, or in some cases seemed
13:32
Speaker 1: to violate the laws of physics, et cetera, et cetera.
13:35
Speaker 1: And there was a big hoopla about these videos and
13:38
Speaker 1: then a lot of analysis of them, and mostly they
13:40
Speaker 1: were shown to have prosaic explanations, you know, like parallax
13:43
Speaker 1: effects or camera motion creating apparent motion of the stuff
13:47
Speaker 1: on screen. We're not going to dig into that today,
13:49
Speaker 1: but that was the source material that inspired Steven Spielberg,
13:53
Speaker 1: who of course has spent his life thinking about aliens,
13:55
Speaker 1: right Close Encounters of the Third kind, et et cetera,
14:00
Speaker 1: write a movie about whether the government has information about
14:04
Speaker 1: aliens because that was really the subject that was brought
14:07
Speaker 1: up by those videos, Like, look, the government has a
14:10
Speaker 1: bunch of these videos, and they've released a few of them,
14:12
Speaker 1: and there's a bunch more that they didn't release. Oh
14:14
Speaker 1: my gosh, what's in those Does the government know about aliens?
14:17
Speaker 1: Are aliens here? And the lizard people are keeping it
14:19
Speaker 1: from us? And so he.
14:21
Speaker 2: Any conspiracy theories you're layering, it's.
14:26
Speaker 1: A universe of conspiracy theories once you dig into it,
14:29
Speaker 1: and there are a lot of them are really fun.
14:30
Speaker 1: But this movie is a fictional story. Okay, right, it's
14:33
Speaker 1: fiction number one. So he created his own universe, and
14:37
Speaker 1: in that universe, the aliens have definitely come to Earth, right,
14:40
Speaker 1: there are aliens who walk among us, And in Spielberg's universe,
14:45
Speaker 1: the government has aliens like hanging out, you know, live
14:50
Speaker 1: aliens they talk to.
14:51
Speaker 2: Like with men in black, Yes.
14:53
Speaker 1: And they are working with these aliens to like create
14:55
Speaker 1: advanced technology and copy their tech. And in some cases, they,
14:59
Speaker 1: like me, we are torturing the aliens, and so like,
15:02
Speaker 1: the relationship between the government the aliens is a little
15:04
Speaker 1: bit fuzzy, but basically the government knows there are aliens
15:07
Speaker 1: and has secret alien tech that they use.
15:11
Speaker 2: Okay, I feel like torture puts you in a not
15:14
Speaker 2: fuzzy area. It's a pretty clear, black and white sort
15:16
Speaker 2: of relationship. But okay, all right, I see where you're going.
15:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, And there's a vast shadow government group tasked with
15:23
Speaker 1: keeping a secret, and they keep it a secret even
15:26
Speaker 1: from like the highest levels of government, so like the
15:28
Speaker 1: president doesn't know. There's like you know, deep state secrets
15:33
Speaker 1: being kept from the highest level of government Congress, et cetera.
15:37
Speaker 1: And so in this movie, the good guys say, hey,
15:41
Speaker 1: the government shouldn't keep all this information secret. Everybody deserves
15:45
Speaker 1: to know about the universe that we live. In that
15:48
Speaker 1: message resonates with me for sure, right, so it.
15:51
Speaker 2: Was easy for you to identify the good guys. There's
15:53
Speaker 2: no ambiguity there.
15:55
Speaker 1: Also, it's pretty clear who Spielberg thinks the good guys
15:57
Speaker 1: are and the bad guy who think they're the good
16:01
Speaker 1: guys are the guys trying to keep it secret, right,
16:04
Speaker 1: And they think it's dangerous to share this information with
16:07
Speaker 1: the public, and then it must be kept from them.
16:10
Speaker 1: And you know, their motivations are not like we want
16:12
Speaker 1: this for ourselves. We want to be the only ones
16:15
Speaker 1: who get to use the alien tech. It's ostensibly to
16:18
Speaker 1: protect the world from this dangerous information. But of course,
16:22
Speaker 1: you know, if they're the only ones who know, then
16:24
Speaker 1: they get to be the only ones who know, and
16:26
Speaker 1: they get to be the only ones who play with
16:27
Speaker 1: the alien tech. So you know, there's a conflict of
16:29
Speaker 1: interest there. Of course. Now the movie is not saying
16:33
Speaker 1: aliens are real. It's not saying the government is hiding
16:36
Speaker 1: aliens from us. It's putting us in a fictional universe
16:39
Speaker 1: where aliens are real, and there's a struggle between elements
16:43
Speaker 1: of society about whether or not that information should be
16:46
Speaker 1: widely known or not.
16:48
Speaker 2: All right, Well, let's take a break, and when we
16:49
Speaker 2: get back, we'll talk about whether or not we think
16:52
Speaker 2: humanity is prepared for the secret about aliens and whether
16:56
Speaker 2: or not it could be bad.
16:58
Speaker 1: I'm ready, I'm ready telling me.
16:59
Speaker 2: Please, Daniel's ready to calm down. Daniel, calm down. And
17:23
Speaker 2: we're back and we are talking about what might happen
17:26
Speaker 2: if a government knew that there were aliens? Would it
17:29
Speaker 2: be safe for them to tell the rest of us?
17:31
Speaker 1: Right, So let's start off by talking about secrecy in general,
17:35
Speaker 1: because you might be tempted to take like a maximalist
17:37
Speaker 1: position or an absolute argument about this and say the
17:40
Speaker 1: government shouldn't have secrets because you know, look, the truth
17:44
Speaker 1: belongs to everybody, and the government is a public institution
17:47
Speaker 1: and it's supposed to work in favor of the public,
17:49
Speaker 1: and we pay for it, et cetera. They represent us.
17:53
Speaker 1: You know, we're not in some sort of North Korean autocracy.
17:56
Speaker 1: And that sounds appealing, but it doesn't really stand up
17:58
Speaker 1: to scrutiny because, for example, you know, people have a
18:03
Speaker 1: right to privacy. You know, there's information the government has
18:07
Speaker 1: about me that other people don't deserve to know, like
18:10
Speaker 1: the details of my tax returns or my social Security
18:14
Speaker 1: number or whatever things that the government might need to
18:17
Speaker 1: know about me because I'm a member of society that
18:20
Speaker 1: Kelly doesn't need to know or a random listener doesn't
18:23
Speaker 1: need to know, right.
18:23
Speaker 2: So why can't I know?
18:27
Speaker 1: What are you gonna do with it? Kelly? How do
18:29
Speaker 1: I know you're not using it for nefarious purposes?
18:31
Speaker 2: And maybe I want to be Daniel Whitson online at least.
18:36
Speaker 1: You know, and in general, like you do not have
18:38
Speaker 1: a right to know everything that everybody knows. You know,
18:41
Speaker 1: there are secrets within marriages that deserve to stay secret.
18:45
Speaker 1: What happens in other people's bedrooms, for example, There's not
18:47
Speaker 1: something I even want to know, and it certainly don't
18:51
Speaker 1: deserve to know. So it's not true most generally that,
18:55
Speaker 1: like the truth belongs to everyone, there are definitely some
18:58
Speaker 1: pieces of information that belong to certain peace people and
19:00
Speaker 1: not everybody has a right to know them. Right, So
19:03
Speaker 1: the maximalist like all information belongs to everybody, that doesn't
19:06
Speaker 1: stand up to scrutiny.
19:08
Speaker 2: Sure, but I also feel like there's broader geopolitical reasons
19:11
Speaker 2: why you'd want to keep secrets.
19:13
Speaker 1: Yes, exactly, it's even reasonable for the government to keep
19:17
Speaker 1: secrets from the public. Right, For example, like how do
19:20
Speaker 1: you purify uranium in an efficient way so that you
19:24
Speaker 1: can have bomb making materials? That's a really dangerous piece
19:28
Speaker 1: of information, and I don't think that everybody should know that.
19:32
Speaker 1: And I think it's good actually for the government to
19:35
Speaker 1: keep some secrets. You know. Or for example, if you could,
19:38
Speaker 1: using implements in your kitchen, develop a device capable of
19:42
Speaker 1: destroying the planet, and you knew that information, you probably
19:45
Speaker 1: should not share that information with the whole planet, right,
19:48
Speaker 1: That would be very dangerous information. And so for national
19:52
Speaker 1: security reasons, it certainly makes sense for the government to
19:56
Speaker 1: keep some secrets. Also, like where are our troops right now?
20:00
Speaker 1: What are they doing? What are their biggest vulnerabilities? Like,
20:04
Speaker 1: that's not information that I deserve to know. Even though
20:07
Speaker 1: those troops are out there in my name and protecting me,
20:12
Speaker 1: they can't protect me and they can't protect the public
20:15
Speaker 1: if their locations and their vulnerabilities are shared. So it
20:19
Speaker 1: makes perfect sense for the government to have some secrets, right.
20:23
Speaker 2: Not controversial, sure, But I guess I feel different about
20:25
Speaker 2: it if I'm thinking about should the North Korean government
20:28
Speaker 2: have secrets? You know? That's less good than the US
20:30
Speaker 2: government having secrets or but anyway, of course, everybody's got
20:33
Speaker 2: their own side.
20:33
Speaker 1: They're rooting for, right exactly. And here we have an
20:36
Speaker 1: element of trust. Right, we accept that the government has
20:41
Speaker 1: secrets from us, and as citizens in a democracy, we
20:44
Speaker 1: can consent to that, to this process that the government
20:47
Speaker 1: will decide what is safe to share and what is
20:50
Speaker 1: not safe to share. And in this case, at least
20:53
Speaker 1: we know about the existence of these secrets, Like, yeah,
20:57
Speaker 1: we all know that there are nuclear weapons and we
20:59
Speaker 1: know that that information about how to build them is dangerous,
21:03
Speaker 1: and we consent to that not being shared broadly. Right,
21:06
Speaker 1: So we're like aware of the existence of the secret,
21:09
Speaker 1: and we can consent to the secret being kept. And
21:12
Speaker 1: more generally, like, yes, the government should know where the
21:15
Speaker 1: troops are and we should not, Like we know about
21:17
Speaker 1: all of these things, and we agree not only that
21:19
Speaker 1: they should be secret, but that the government should be
21:21
Speaker 1: in charge of which secrets are kept and who is
21:25
Speaker 1: told them. Right. So that's a level of trust we're
21:27
Speaker 1: putting in the government.
21:28
Speaker 2: But I feel like you're assuming that we know of
21:31
Speaker 2: all of the categories of things that we're not being
21:33
Speaker 2: told about. But there could be categories of things that
21:36
Speaker 2: we don't know that we're not being told about. And
21:37
Speaker 2: I guess that's I guess that's the point. Huh, yes, exactly,
21:40
Speaker 2: I'm catching up.
21:41
Speaker 1: So that's the next level. Right, Are there secrets that
21:45
Speaker 1: are too dangerous for us to even know of their existence?
21:49
Speaker 1: Could there be knowledge that's so dangerous we have to
21:52
Speaker 1: be protected from being told that it exists. And that's
21:56
Speaker 1: the question of this movie, right, because in the movie,
21:59
Speaker 1: they know about aliens, and the baddies are always saying
22:04
Speaker 1: this information is too dangerous. If you told everybody about this,
22:08
Speaker 1: it would cause societal disruption and it would tear the
22:11
Speaker 1: world apart, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And the
22:14
Speaker 1: argument is like, essentially, we're like being children that need
22:17
Speaker 1: to be lied to about the reality.
22:20
Speaker 2: You know, do they go into any more detail about
22:22
Speaker 2: like what they're worried about? In particular, I feel like
22:25
Speaker 2: I'm not necessarily seeing the steps between letting people know
22:28
Speaker 2: that there are aliens and the like collapse of civilization.
22:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, I had the same reaction, and we're
22:35
Speaker 1: going to dig into that in a minute. Oka, But
22:36
Speaker 1: first I think there's more to explore about this question
22:39
Speaker 1: more generally, about whether the government can keep secrets about
22:43
Speaker 1: the secrets they're keeping, you know, like, even if you
22:46
Speaker 1: don't believe that the knowledge of aliens would tear society part,
22:50
Speaker 1: can you, Kelly, imagine a secret that the government should
22:54
Speaker 1: keep from us, something where the knowledge would be so
22:58
Speaker 1: dangerous that even it ain't exists is dangerous? Uh?
23:03
Speaker 2: All right, so you're putting me on the spot. Well,
23:06
Speaker 2: I mean you gave some examples earlier of you know, like,
23:09
Speaker 2: if it was possible to make a nuclear weapon in
23:12
Speaker 2: your kitchen, I would not want the government to share.
23:14
Speaker 1: That, right, And I agree that the government shouldn't share
23:17
Speaker 1: the knowledge of how to build it, But the fact
23:19
Speaker 1: that it's possible, I suppose maybe you are you saying
23:22
Speaker 1: that even the fact that it's possible to do that, yeah,
23:25
Speaker 1: should be kept secret. Yeah.
23:26
Speaker 2: Man, I don't think I want the government being like, oh, hey,
23:27
Speaker 2: we figured out a way to make nuclear weapons in
23:29
Speaker 2: the kitchen. We're not going to tell you, but we're
23:32
Speaker 2: gonna leave that as an exercise for the for the
23:35
Speaker 2: student or whatever. So I'm mean I can imagine not
23:38
Speaker 2: wanting people to know that that is a possibility at all,
23:41
Speaker 2: For example.
23:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's interesting. Another category I was thinking about was panic.
23:46
Speaker 1: What information might legitimately cause panic? And you see this
23:50
Speaker 1: a lot in like the afteroid movies that I love
23:52
Speaker 1: to watch. You know, an asteroid is going to hit
23:54
Speaker 1: the Earth in five days, discovers government scientists. Should we
23:58
Speaker 1: tell everybody? Yeah, well, knowing that the Earth is going
24:01
Speaker 1: to be obliterated in five days probably would cause a
24:03
Speaker 1: lot of societal disruption and break down of law and
24:07
Speaker 1: order and stuff. I still think we should tell everybody.
24:10
Speaker 1: People deserve to know that kind of stuff, Like, yes,
24:12
Speaker 1: maybe lawless gangs are now going to be roaming the
24:15
Speaker 1: streets with human heads on their motorcycles or whatever, But
24:18
Speaker 1: I would like to know if I'm going to die
24:20
Speaker 1: in five days and everybody I love. I think maybe
24:23
Speaker 1: a fuzzier question is like, well, what if scientists discover
24:27
Speaker 1: there's a fifty percent chance then an asteroid is going
24:31
Speaker 1: to destroy the planet, and then you might be causing
24:33
Speaker 1: panic for no reason. Right, So these are interesting scenarios
24:37
Speaker 1: without easy answers, and I think it's a worthwhile philosophical discussion,
24:42
Speaker 1: and one about democracy and representation and trust and do
24:46
Speaker 1: you trust the government to decide which secrets to keep.
24:49
Speaker 1: But I think the scenario of aliens, which we can
24:52
Speaker 1: circle back to your comment, doesn't really fall in that category.
24:55
Speaker 1: I mean, in the movie, they suggest that the ontological
25:00
Speaker 1: shock of learning that we're not the only critters in
25:04
Speaker 1: the universe capable of developing technology, and not even the
25:08
Speaker 1: only creators on Earth because the aliens are here, that
25:10
Speaker 1: that would like disrupt society. But I don't buy that,
25:14
Speaker 1: you know, I think, yes, that would be an ontological shock,
25:18
Speaker 1: it would change our relationship with the universe. But I
25:21
Speaker 1: don't think everybody's going to be like throwing bricks through
25:24
Speaker 1: targets plate glass windows, and response like, does that make
25:27
Speaker 1: sense to you at all?
25:30
Speaker 2: So I agree with you, and I also feel like
25:31
Speaker 2: we should give humanity a chance to put the best
25:35
Speaker 2: foot forward and like impress us as opposed to just
25:38
Speaker 2: assuming that they're going to throw bricks through plate glass windows.
25:42
Speaker 2: But you know, maybe that's just I like to think
25:44
Speaker 2: of myself as an optimist. And yeah, it does seem
25:47
Speaker 2: like a very different kind of question than is an
25:49
Speaker 2: asteroid coming to kill us all? Although I can imagine
25:53
Speaker 2: like if an influencer, for example, you know, got word
25:56
Speaker 2: and started convincing people that like, literally the only reason
25:59
Speaker 2: aliens would come here is if they thought that we
26:01
Speaker 2: were a delicious snack and a nutrients that was missing
26:04
Speaker 2: on their home planet was found in human bodies. I mean,
26:07
Speaker 2: I can imagine people creating panic, But on the other hand,
26:11
Speaker 2: I still feel like everyone has a right to know
26:14
Speaker 2: that we are not the only life in the universe.
26:17
Speaker 2: That seems like an important thing for everyone to be
26:19
Speaker 2: able to like handle.
26:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's a really good point. I mean the
26:22
Speaker 1: scenario where like, look, we've just learned aliens have entered
26:26
Speaker 1: the Solar System and they're going to be here in
26:27
Speaker 1: five days, that's more akin to the asteroid, like we
26:31
Speaker 1: don't know are they going to show up and shake
26:32
Speaker 1: our hands, or are they going to nuc us from
26:34
Speaker 1: space or send us to work in the hydrogen minds.
26:37
Speaker 1: That's a little scary. But the scenario in this movie
26:41
Speaker 1: is much different from that. It's aliens have been here
26:43
Speaker 1: for sixty years, and we've been happily collaborating with them
26:46
Speaker 1: on scientific projects in secret for sixty years since Roswell.
26:50
Speaker 2: Or we've been waterboarding them one of the others.
26:53
Speaker 1: And we've been torturing them. Actually, So if we're at
26:56
Speaker 1: the baddies, right, And so I don't think that that
26:59
Speaker 1: scenario would set off like mass riots or upheaval or
27:03
Speaker 1: had it in might you know, undermine the government. The
27:06
Speaker 1: government might be voted out of power, you know, or
27:09
Speaker 1: you might need like reforms if we discover the government's
27:12
Speaker 1: been misbehaving in that way. But you know, nobody's throwing
27:15
Speaker 1: bricks through play class windows in that scenario. In fact,
27:18
Speaker 1: I think it might be kind of shrugged off, Like
27:21
Speaker 1: this would not be a massive ontological shock. Yes, it's
27:24
Speaker 1: a big update to our knowledge, but it's not like
27:26
Speaker 1: something we haven't considered. It's the subject of like a
27:29
Speaker 1: lot of movies, and there's a lot of people out
27:31
Speaker 1: there who already believe that it's true, right, lots of
27:35
Speaker 1: folks out there believe that aliens walk among us. So
27:38
Speaker 1: learning that that's true it's fascinating and it's important, But
27:42
Speaker 1: I don't think it's like as big and ontological shock
27:45
Speaker 1: as like the Big Bang, you know, learning that the
27:48
Speaker 1: universe is expanding and was once really really dense, or
27:52
Speaker 1: when we learned that like the Earth is billions of
27:55
Speaker 1: years old, or when we learned about evolution, Like these
27:58
Speaker 1: are huge ontological shocks that require us to update our
28:02
Speaker 1: knowledge of the universe and our place in it, our
28:05
Speaker 1: relationship with it, the context of our lives, all this stuff.
28:09
Speaker 1: But there weren't like riots in response to Darwin or
28:12
Speaker 1: like continental drift theory. You know, there were definitely like
28:16
Speaker 1: social responses, but not something that would make you think,
28:19
Speaker 1: like whoa humanity is not ready to know this stuff.
28:23
Speaker 2: So let's think about what is the worst thing that
28:25
Speaker 2: happened after one of those theories became popular. So like,
28:29
Speaker 2: I can't say that I because I'm also a wet blanket,
28:32
Speaker 2: So I can't say that I've you know, like looked
28:35
Speaker 2: up all of these and know the history of all
28:36
Speaker 2: of these right now. But like, for example, after the
28:38
Speaker 2: idea of evolution came out, eugenics followed from that idea,
28:41
Speaker 2: you know, the idea that there are some races that
28:44
Speaker 2: are more fit than others, which has no scientific basis
28:47
Speaker 2: at all, but we convinced ourselves at the time that
28:49
Speaker 2: it did, and then we did some horrible things after that,
28:53
Speaker 2: you know, theory became public and so on the one hand,
28:57
Speaker 2: you know, we've learned a lot. It's you know, contributed
28:59
Speaker 2: to our standing of the universe, but we didn't handle
29:02
Speaker 2: that information appropriately for a long time, and vulnerable population
29:06
Speaker 2: suffered the most. Does that change the way you think
29:09
Speaker 2: about all of this or is it just it's humanity's
29:11
Speaker 2: responsibility to handle the truth in a responsible way. Sometimes
29:15
Speaker 2: we fail, but we shouldn't hide the truth. What do
29:17
Speaker 2: you think?
29:18
Speaker 1: I think we have definitely behaved badly in lots of
29:20
Speaker 1: scenarios in response to the truth, but we've also behaved
29:24
Speaker 1: badly without knowing the truth. Yeah, so I think we're
29:28
Speaker 1: I hope we're more likely to behave well when we
29:31
Speaker 1: understand reality, when our knowledge is more aligned with the
29:35
Speaker 1: way the universe actually works. I mean, I guess it's
29:38
Speaker 1: not a big surprise to say, like, I'm a big
29:40
Speaker 1: believer in transparency and people should know. I mean up
29:43
Speaker 1: to like you know, what's going on in random people's bedrooms.
29:46
Speaker 1: But in terms of like knowledge of the universe and
29:49
Speaker 1: the outputs of science, I think people deserve to know.
29:53
Speaker 1: And even if the consequences are like look, society gets
29:57
Speaker 1: overhauled or changes like that's in response to we it's
30:01
Speaker 1: better to live in reality than to live in illusion.
30:04
Speaker 1: So yeah, there can be ontological shocks and some of
30:07
Speaker 1: those can be even kind of harsh and might lead
30:10
Speaker 1: to a reorganization of how we live. But then we're
30:14
Speaker 1: living in a way that responds to the universe and
30:17
Speaker 1: not fiction. And I think that's definitely got to be better.
30:21
Speaker 1: And I don't trust the government to make these decisions
30:24
Speaker 1: about like, look, here's a piece of information which we
30:27
Speaker 1: imagine people might respond poorly to. Like, that's definitely overreach
30:31
Speaker 1: in my book, And if we want to think more about,
30:34
Speaker 1: like how might people respond to this, like, think about
30:37
Speaker 1: the way people respond to current scientific results or you know,
30:42
Speaker 1: space exploration achievements. Still a lot of people out there
30:46
Speaker 1: like deny that the Earth is round or that we
30:48
Speaker 1: went to the moon. So even if the government like
30:51
Speaker 1: produced aliens, that a lot of people will be like, nah,
30:54
Speaker 1: I don't believe it. Yeah, you know. And so I
30:58
Speaker 1: don't think that it makes sense to keep this information
31:01
Speaker 1: from people. And I don't buy the argument really at
31:04
Speaker 1: all that it would lead to chaos or riots that
31:08
Speaker 1: we're somehow protecting humanity by keeping this information from us,
31:12
Speaker 1: Which leads to a really interesting question, which is, like
31:15
Speaker 1: where does this idea come from that disclosure might be
31:19
Speaker 1: dangerous because it's definitely out there, like it's a premise
31:22
Speaker 1: in this movie and it's just sort of like stated
31:25
Speaker 1: as if it was obviously true. But your initial reaction
31:29
Speaker 1: was like, huh, that doesn't make sense and doesn't make
31:30
Speaker 1: any sense to me. I can't make a strong argument
31:32
Speaker 1: for it, But there is an interesting history here, and
31:37
Speaker 1: I have a speculation. So here's my theory about where
31:39
Speaker 1: this idea comes from. I think it might be a
31:43
Speaker 1: load bearing strut in the UFO conspiracy theories. Right, So
31:48
Speaker 1: people who believe that aliens are here and that the
31:52
Speaker 1: government has like recovered craft and it's like reverse engineering
31:56
Speaker 1: and in reality not in the movie, right like today,
31:59
Speaker 1: that there are alien in somewhere in a bunker or
32:02
Speaker 1: in a hangar owned by the government. Those people have
32:05
Speaker 1: a little bit of an issue, which is like, Okay,
32:08
Speaker 1: the government has this information, why haven't they shared it?
32:12
Speaker 1: Why are they keeping it a secret? Right? Because the
32:16
Speaker 1: government share scientific information all the time. I published papers,
32:19
Speaker 1: You published papers, is all government funded research, and so
32:22
Speaker 1: they need an answer to the question why it has
32:25
Speaker 1: not been disclosed, And so if it was too dangerous,
32:29
Speaker 1: then okay, there's your answer, right, And in this weird
32:33
Speaker 1: way that conspiracy theories work like the lack of evidence
32:38
Speaker 1: for aliens becomes like a load bearing part of the
32:41
Speaker 1: story rather than a gap. The fact that their government
32:45
Speaker 1: has not shared any evidence but there are some of
32:47
Speaker 1: these suggestive hints implies that there's like a cover up, right,
32:52
Speaker 1: And so I think it helps support this conspiracy theory
32:55
Speaker 1: to argue that disclosure would be dangerous and that's why
32:59
Speaker 1: they haven't told I personally don't think it makes a
33:02
Speaker 1: lot of sense. I'd be curious to hear from listeners
33:05
Speaker 1: who disagree with me about this. Write to me and
33:07
Speaker 1: let me know why you think it might be dangerous
33:10
Speaker 1: to disclose aliens. But I do think that it helps
33:14
Speaker 1: the conspiracy theory survive, right, because it provides an answer
33:19
Speaker 1: to the question of why hasn't the government told us
33:22
Speaker 1: about this? If they are here, and if you're thinking, like, well,
33:26
Speaker 1: what if the government has worked to the aliens and
33:28
Speaker 1: now they have super dangerous new technology. Cool, But the
33:32
Speaker 1: government could still tell us about the aliens without like
33:35
Speaker 1: sharing the technology. If the Aliens know how to build
33:38
Speaker 1: a nuclear bomb from vinegar and baking soda, you don't
33:41
Speaker 1: have to tell us about that, just you could still
33:43
Speaker 1: tell us the aliens are here, right, So it doesn't
33:46
Speaker 1: hold together from me, and I think it's a necessary
33:49
Speaker 1: part of this conspiracy theory survival. That's my theory for
33:52
Speaker 1: where this comes from.
33:54
Speaker 2: I suppose I could see the argument that, like, if
33:56
Speaker 2: you're getting secrets from the aliens, it would be easier
34:00
Speaker 2: to surprise your adversaries if they didn't know the aliens
34:03
Speaker 2: existed at all, because then they wouldn't have crazy out
34:07
Speaker 2: of this world's technology on their mind, as like something
34:11
Speaker 2: that for example, the United States could have. So I
34:14
Speaker 2: could plausibly see that argument maybe, But I feel like
34:18
Speaker 2: I have a lot of dear friends who work for
34:22
Speaker 2: the government, and it's hard for me to believe that
34:26
Speaker 2: anybody would like not slip up and like share that
34:31
Speaker 2: information that aliens exist.
34:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, so let's stick into that, like is it plausible
34:36
Speaker 1: for the government to keep such a secret? And I
34:39
Speaker 1: think here it's worth doing a little bit of history
34:42
Speaker 1: and understanding where some of these theories come from, because
34:47
Speaker 1: you know, the government has not always behaved very well
34:51
Speaker 1: through and there have been times the government has lied
34:53
Speaker 1: to us, and so the history of the disclosure movement,
34:56
Speaker 1: specifically like in reality not in the movie, is interesting
35:00
Speaker 1: it comes from.
35:01
Speaker 2: Actually, Daniel, I'm going to cut you off. We're going
35:03
Speaker 2: to take a break, and when we get back, that's
35:05
Speaker 2: when we'll hear about instances where the government has actually
35:08
Speaker 2: hidden stuff from us for at least some period of time.
35:31
Speaker 2: And we're back, and you know, in case you were
35:34
Speaker 2: sleeping well at night, let's go ahead and have Daniel
35:37
Speaker 2: tell us about some examples where the government at least
35:40
Speaker 2: tried to keep some secrets from us.
35:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, as a way to trace like, where does the
35:45
Speaker 1: disclosure movement come from the people who believe that the
35:49
Speaker 1: government has alien craft and are advocating for transparency about
35:55
Speaker 1: it has interesting threads in history, and it starts with
35:59
Speaker 1: the Oswell incident, you know, famous crash in nineteen forty seven,
36:05
Speaker 1: which was not handled super well by the government. So
36:09
Speaker 1: this is July eighth, nineteen forty seven, and initially there
36:14
Speaker 1: was an announcement that they had recovered a flying disc,
36:17
Speaker 1: and this was reported in newspapers nationwide, though it may
36:21
Speaker 1: have been like a misquote of the farmer you know,
36:25
Speaker 1: who used it as an analogy, but anyway, it was
36:27
Speaker 1: reported as a flying disc. But then very quickly the
36:31
Speaker 1: official statement was reversed and they said, no, no, no,
36:34
Speaker 1: it was just an ordinary weather balloon. Unfortunately, this was
36:38
Speaker 1: not what was actually happening, Right, this is not an
36:41
Speaker 1: ordinary weather balloon. Years and decades later, actually, nineteen ninety four, right,
36:46
Speaker 1: the US Air Force revealed that it was part of
36:49
Speaker 1: Project Mogul, a then secret program that flew these long
36:54
Speaker 1: trains of balloons carrying microphones as a way to develop
36:57
Speaker 1: technology that could detect Soviet nuclear tesch So back in
37:01
Speaker 1: nineteen forty seven, they didn't want to reveal, oh, hey,
37:04
Speaker 1: this is part of a secret project of Americans, not aliens,
37:10
Speaker 1: developing these new kind of objects that can fly and listen.
37:14
Speaker 1: So they lied about it and no, no, no, it's an
37:16
Speaker 1: ordinary weather balloon.
37:17
Speaker 2: For fifty years.
37:18
Speaker 1: I don't think they lied about it very well, and
37:21
Speaker 1: it created a lot of confusion. And also the initial
37:24
Speaker 1: reports about it being a flying disc and then being
37:27
Speaker 1: labeled weather balloon and then later admitting it wasn't a
37:30
Speaker 1: weather balloon didn't create a whole lot of credibility to
37:33
Speaker 1: the government.
37:34
Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess, so you're trying to play the devil's advocate.
37:36
Speaker 2: I guess you could say the government at least cleared
37:38
Speaker 2: up that it wasn't alien made, and then they kept
37:41
Speaker 2: the secret that they needed to keep for the Cold
37:44
Speaker 2: War perspective. But it is amazing it took fifty years.
37:47
Speaker 2: I mean, you think the Soviet Union, well, I was
37:49
Speaker 2: gonna say the Soviet Union fell in ninety one, and
37:51
Speaker 2: then just a couple of years later it became announced
37:53
Speaker 2: or something like that. Yeah, you still probably didn't need
37:55
Speaker 2: the secret for that long.
37:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know. But you know, the other part
37:59
Speaker 1: of this context is like in the seventies, the public
38:02
Speaker 1: lost a lot of faith in the government. You know,
38:05
Speaker 1: we had Nixon and Watergate and discovery that the government
38:09
Speaker 1: is spying on us or is lying to us. A
38:12
Speaker 1: lot of faith was lost in the government there, and
38:15
Speaker 1: that adds to this perception of like, hey, it's totally reasonable,
38:19
Speaker 1: actually and not conspiracy nonsense to imagine that the government
38:23
Speaker 1: is doing nefarious, sneaky, even illegal things because they had
38:27
Speaker 1: been right. And so that sets the stage for this
38:30
Speaker 1: MJ twelve hoax. In nineteen eighty four, there was a
38:33
Speaker 1: release of these documents called the Majestic twelve. These claimed
38:38
Speaker 1: later discovered to be a hoax and forgeries, that there
38:41
Speaker 1: was a secret committee created by Harry Truman to manage
38:44
Speaker 1: or covered alien technology and bodies O R. And so
38:48
Speaker 1: this was catnip for people who believed that the government
38:53
Speaker 1: was lying to us, because the government does lie to us,
38:55
Speaker 1: and wanted to believe that they were aliens and the
38:58
Speaker 1: government was working with them. And so this framework, you know,
39:02
Speaker 1: the alien crash head craft, the government had recovered them,
39:05
Speaker 1: a secret organization controls the evidence, and the public is
39:08
Speaker 1: being intentionally deceived. This really sank deep into a lot
39:14
Speaker 1: of people's psyche. Even though most historians and document experts
39:18
Speaker 1: analyzing it think it's very very clear that these MJ
39:21
Speaker 1: twelve papers are forgeries, they still had a vast influence
39:25
Speaker 1: on a lot of people.
39:27
Speaker 2: So for Roswell, the inciting event was the crash, but
39:30
Speaker 2: for MJ twelve, the inciting event was somebody forged papers
39:34
Speaker 2: and released it or was there okay, huh.
39:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, okay. And so then in the nineties the
39:41
Speaker 1: term disclosure becomes widespread, and you know, we have things
39:45
Speaker 1: like the X Files, which taps into this feeling of like, hey,
39:48
Speaker 1: there's truth out there that you don't know, but somebody
39:52
Speaker 1: does and it's being kept from you by shadowy government operators. Right,
39:58
Speaker 1: and again, look, you know, the the government has behaved
40:01
Speaker 1: badly in lots of scenarios, and so there's reason to
40:05
Speaker 1: feel that way. And then there's the growth of the Internet,
40:08
Speaker 1: which connects a lot of people who think these things
40:10
Speaker 1: and connects them to each other. And then it was
40:13
Speaker 1: in two thousand and one at an event by the
40:15
Speaker 1: National Press Club organized by Stephen Greer, and he created
40:19
Speaker 1: a new organization called the Disclosure Project, and this helps
40:23
Speaker 1: standardize the term disclosure as a proper noun. And so
40:27
Speaker 1: that's the beginning of like the official disclosure movement, which
40:30
Speaker 1: then blew up and became mainstream after these New York
40:33
Speaker 1: Times articles in twenty seventeen.
40:35
Speaker 2: Okay, so when I was getting interviewed for a city
40:37
Speaker 2: on Mars, and this was in like twenty twenty two,
40:40
Speaker 2: twenty twenty three, people would say to me like, well,
40:43
Speaker 2: what do you think about the recent disclosures about aliens?
40:46
Speaker 2: Do you believe that they've come to Earth? What were
40:48
Speaker 2: they talking about? Because I, again, I live under a
40:51
Speaker 2: rock with my fingers in my ears, and so I
40:53
Speaker 2: hadn't heard about these things. What were they asking about?
40:55
Speaker 1: So they're probably referring to these release of these videos
40:59
Speaker 1: in seven and the articles about them. You know, there's
41:02
Speaker 1: always been discussion on the margins, but to see this
41:05
Speaker 1: reported credulously in the New York Times really made it
41:09
Speaker 1: mainstream for a lot of people. And these videos are fascinating,
41:12
Speaker 1: you know, there's the tic TAC video, the go Fast video.
41:15
Speaker 1: You should go out and watch these things, and then
41:16
Speaker 1: you should also see the analysis of them by folks
41:19
Speaker 1: like Mick West and other people who try to understand,
41:22
Speaker 1: like what are we seeing? But for a lot of people,
41:25
Speaker 1: these were treated as evidence that UFOs are real. Number One,
41:30
Speaker 1: you have navy pilots who are not just like you
41:33
Speaker 1: know Internet cranks. These are like highly trained folks saying
41:37
Speaker 1: that they're seeing stuff all the time that they're not understanding.
41:40
Speaker 1: And you now have these videos from some cameras on
41:43
Speaker 1: these jets showing stuff that we can't initially explain. So
41:46
Speaker 1: the government said they had like more than a hundred
41:49
Speaker 1: of these videos and they only released a few.
41:51
Speaker 2: That's like a recipe for I want to cause problems.
41:55
Speaker 1: Right, Well, it's sort of similar to the Roswell incident.
41:58
Speaker 1: Like I'm sure that some of these videos were government secrets,
42:01
Speaker 1: you know, like government has the technology to see this
42:04
Speaker 1: and that they don' want to reveal that they know
42:06
Speaker 1: how to do this. They have this kind of camera
42:08
Speaker 1: that can do these kinds of things. There's lots of
42:10
Speaker 1: reasons to keep these video secrets that are not there
42:13
Speaker 1: are aliens in them. They could also have videos of
42:17
Speaker 1: like new I don't know, Chinese drones that can do
42:21
Speaker 1: crazy things, and maybe we don't want the Chinese to
42:23
Speaker 1: know that we know. Like so, there's lots of prosaic,
42:25
Speaker 1: possible explanations for why they might keep it secret. I
42:29
Speaker 1: actually once got a phone call from a US congress
42:32
Speaker 1: person who wanted to know like, Hey, I'm hearing stuff
42:35
Speaker 1: about these videos. What does the physics say, Like is
42:39
Speaker 1: it possible for there to be wormholes and whatever? I
42:42
Speaker 1: was like, Cheryl, answer those, but first tell me what
42:44
Speaker 1: you see in these videos, Like what's there? You've seen
42:47
Speaker 1: all the videos, and he was like, yeah, there's nothing
42:49
Speaker 1: there that's exciting. It's all similar to stuff we've seen.
42:52
Speaker 1: So I don't know if he was revealing stuff he
42:54
Speaker 1: wasn't supposed to do and now I'm revealing it. I
42:55
Speaker 1: don't know. Anyway, Clearly, don't tell me any secrets.
42:59
Speaker 2: And this is the point the government's not good at
43:01
Speaker 2: keeping secrets because it tells people like Daniel exactly the
43:05
Speaker 2: worst thing you could do.
43:07
Speaker 1: So anyway, that's the history of the disclosure movement. And
43:11
Speaker 1: you know, I want to say, I don't think that
43:13
Speaker 1: the government has these secrets and it's keeping them, but
43:15
Speaker 1: I do believe in disclosure. I do think the government
43:18
Speaker 1: should be more transparent. I think government secrecy has created
43:23
Speaker 1: a lot of gaps and a lot of confusion and
43:26
Speaker 1: a lot of distrust, and we would all be better
43:28
Speaker 1: off if there was more transparency. So I'm definitely pro disclosure,
43:33
Speaker 1: and I agree with you that it's implausible for a
43:35
Speaker 1: government to keep such a secret for so long. Like
43:38
Speaker 1: in the movie Disclosure Day, there this vast network, there's
43:42
Speaker 1: people who like come to work every day. There's like
43:44
Speaker 1: hundreds of people who work in this organization. How can
43:47
Speaker 1: they possibly keep this secret for so long? And in fact,
43:50
Speaker 1: the movie I think I'm not sure if it's intentional
43:53
Speaker 1: or not, essentially argues that it's impossible because the whole
43:55
Speaker 1: plot of the movie is somebody who's working on the
43:58
Speaker 1: inside decides individually, unilaterally that this isn't a secret that
44:03
Speaker 1: should be kept, and they work to disclose it and
44:06
Speaker 1: eventually that's gonna happen.
44:07
Speaker 2: There's got to be a Daniel in there, exactly, there's
44:09
Speaker 2: a Daniel in the organization.
44:12
Speaker 1: And essentially, I think it's impossible to imagine that everybody's
44:16
Speaker 1: going to agree with the mission forever. And like, think
44:18
Speaker 1: about how the government has failed to keep secrets. Like
44:22
Speaker 1: when we created nuclear technology, how long did the US
44:25
Speaker 1: keep that secret? It was like less than ten years.
44:28
Speaker 2: Well, and Klaus Fuchs was already sharing the information between
44:31
Speaker 2: governments while it was happening.
44:33
Speaker 1: Right there, you go, there's always going to be like
44:35
Speaker 1: a Snowden, right, and to say mass surveillance was revealed
44:38
Speaker 1: by Edward Snowden. You know, you've got examples like the
44:41
Speaker 1: Pentagon papers and MK Ultra and stuff like this. It's
44:44
Speaker 1: hard for the government to keep secrets for very long.
44:47
Speaker 1: So the idea that the government would have a vast
44:50
Speaker 1: network of people scientists like PhDs, it's not that big
44:55
Speaker 1: a community. If there is a huge group of people
44:58
Speaker 1: with physics PhDs who are in now working on like
45:01
Speaker 1: understanding alien technology, I would know some of them. We'd
45:05
Speaker 1: all be like, hey, where did Sally go after she
45:07
Speaker 1: got her PhD? Oh, nobody's heard from Sally. Nobody knows
45:09
Speaker 1: what Sally's working on, Like, you know, there's not a
45:12
Speaker 1: missing community of PhD's working on this stuff. So I
45:15
Speaker 1: think disclosure would be inevitable. If the government had these
45:18
Speaker 1: secrets eighty years ago, we would know them by now, all.
45:21
Speaker 2: Right, So let's take a step back and think about
45:22
Speaker 2: if we have been consistent with our arguments across this. So, like,
45:26
Speaker 2: you know, we've been saying the government tries to keep secrets,
45:29
Speaker 2: but they're not really good at it. They pretty much
45:31
Speaker 2: always you know, it gets revealed. But like the Roswell
45:33
Speaker 2: incident took fifty years, you know, and so like, how
45:37
Speaker 2: what makes you confident that the government hasn't been sitting
45:41
Speaker 2: on the existence of aliens for five years and the
45:44
Speaker 2: Daniel in their community hasn't come forward yet, Like what
45:47
Speaker 2: what do you think about a scenario like that?
45:49
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a good point, And I think you're right.
45:52
Speaker 1: I think if aliens had like teleported into the Oval
45:55
Speaker 1: Office yesterday, we would probably not know about it yet
45:59
Speaker 1: because the government would spend some time, and I think
46:02
Speaker 1: responsibly so trying to understand the implications of revealing this
46:07
Speaker 1: information and taking care so I think it's possible for
46:10
Speaker 1: these secrets to be kept briefly. I think these secrets
46:14
Speaker 1: are so shocking and the implications so vast that it's
46:17
Speaker 1: impossible for them to be kept for very long. And
46:20
Speaker 1: I think that a lot of this disclosure movement argues
46:23
Speaker 1: that they've been here for a while. They've been here
46:25
Speaker 1: since Roswell. But I agree with you that it is
46:27
Speaker 1: something that could be kept secret briefly.
46:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, But I agree something like aliens, especially because if
46:34
Speaker 2: you are the person who tells the world about aliens,
46:37
Speaker 2: you are like your name will be remembered forever, and
46:40
Speaker 2: so I feel like there's also that level on top
46:42
Speaker 2: of it, like the possibility to become absolutely stink and
46:45
Speaker 2: famous probably also would push you to disclose.
46:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I'm pretty sure our current attention loving president
46:52
Speaker 1: wouldn't pass on that opportunity.
46:53
Speaker 3: Yeah.
46:54
Speaker 1: And I think there's something else interesting raised by the movie.
46:57
Speaker 1: In disclosure to the movie spoiler alert, they disclose the
47:01
Speaker 1: aliens are real, right, the good guys win, And the
47:05
Speaker 1: way they do it is with overwhelming evidence, not like
47:09
Speaker 1: grainy footage or even first hand accounts from Navy pilots
47:14
Speaker 1: like they bring the alien on TV. They show us
47:17
Speaker 1: an alien. It's very clear, and I think that makes
47:21
Speaker 1: the point that when disclosure happens, it's going to have
47:24
Speaker 1: to be overwhelming so that no reasonable person can doubt anymore.
47:28
Speaker 1: And now way, I think that this movie avoided a
47:31
Speaker 1: lot of the really interesting questions, you know, like is
47:34
Speaker 1: disclosure actually dangerous? The movie doesn't discuss it at all.
47:38
Speaker 1: When disclosure happens, how do you deal with doubt? They
47:41
Speaker 1: avoided that by making it just overwhelming, you know. So
47:44
Speaker 1: the current situation that we're in where they are like,
47:47
Speaker 1: there are some hints that something weird is going on,
47:49
Speaker 1: and the government is keyp being some secrets and probably
47:52
Speaker 1: it's Chinese drones or whatever, but we don't know for sure.
47:56
Speaker 1: We're in an interesting situation and people have reasonable questions,
47:59
Speaker 1: and this movie does and address any of them at all.
48:02
Speaker 1: It just imagines the scenario where we know one hundred
48:05
Speaker 1: percent of their aliens and we show to the public
48:07
Speaker 1: with overwhelming data so that nobody can doubt. So in
48:10
Speaker 1: that sense, you know, to circle back to the review
48:12
Speaker 1: of the movie, like, I thought the movie was fun,
48:15
Speaker 1: it was well written, it was well acted. It's Spielberg,
48:18
Speaker 1: he knows what he's doing. The science fiction in the
48:20
Speaker 1: movie is like very very very soft science fiction. You know,
48:24
Speaker 1: they use alien tech as a plot device anytime they
48:26
Speaker 1: want something to happen. They're like, well, maybe the aliens
48:28
Speaker 1: can just do that. And it avoids all the core
48:31
Speaker 1: interesting questions about aliens and disclosure and all this kind
48:35
Speaker 1: of stuff that we've discussed. But it was fun. I
48:37
Speaker 1: had a good time, and it was definitely worth, you know,
48:39
Speaker 1: twelve dollars or whatever I paid for it.
48:42
Speaker 2: As a biologist, what I want to know is what
48:43
Speaker 2: did the aliens look like? Were they just like human
48:46
Speaker 2: bodies but green? What did they do?
48:49
Speaker 1: Yeah, so in this movie the aliens are the canonical
48:53
Speaker 1: big head, big eye, no nose aliens with like the
48:56
Speaker 1: backward legs. Yeah, there's not a whole lot of creativity
48:59
Speaker 1: there at all.
49:01
Speaker 2: I had hoped for more, but that's all right, okay,
49:05
Speaker 2: But you.
49:05
Speaker 1: Know, there's a fascinating characters, and it's a story well
49:08
Speaker 1: told and definitely a good movie for a movie's sake.
49:11
Speaker 1: I don't think a great movie about disclosure, and I
49:13
Speaker 1: don't think it tackles these interesting questions very well. But
49:17
Speaker 1: you know, it was fun to watch and we got
49:19
Speaker 1: to have this fun conversation. So from that point of view,
49:22
Speaker 1: thumbs up.
49:23
Speaker 2: Okay, So then let's bottom line your opinion. So, given
49:26
Speaker 2: everything that we've talked about today, it sounds like you
49:29
Speaker 2: don't think there's good evidence for aliens that we have now,
49:32
Speaker 2: whether it's behind government closed doors or out in public.
49:36
Speaker 2: What is your bottom line on have aliens visited us yet?
49:40
Speaker 1: I think it's very unlikely that aliens have come to
49:43
Speaker 1: Earth and the government knows about it and has been
49:47
Speaker 1: working with them and keeping that secret for decades. I
49:50
Speaker 1: just think that's totally implausible, and I don't think the
49:54
Speaker 1: government should keep that secret. I think if the government
49:57
Speaker 1: knows about aliens, they should tell us. I don't think
49:59
Speaker 1: this is a good argument for protect the public by
50:03
Speaker 1: not telling them, or like release it in waves to
50:06
Speaker 1: slowly acclimatize us, like we're not children, you know, we
50:09
Speaker 1: don't need to be lied to about Santa Claus. I
50:11
Speaker 1: don't think that makes any sense. I think that props
50:14
Speaker 1: up uphotus conspiracy theories and does more harm than it
50:17
Speaker 1: does good. So if the government has aliens and that's
50:20
Speaker 1: their plan, I think it's a mistaken one. It's a
50:23
Speaker 1: good idea. So that's my bottom line, Okay.
50:27
Speaker 2: I mean, I f guess I feel like if you
50:29
Speaker 2: hundreds of years ago had told people that aliens existed,
50:32
Speaker 2: that might be like intellectually catastrophic. So maybe this is
50:36
Speaker 2: the biologist in me, but I feel like, you know,
50:38
Speaker 2: we have thought of ourselves as like, oh, we're the
50:39
Speaker 2: only species that uses tools, but like I just saw
50:42
Speaker 2: a video of a cow scratching its butt with a
50:44
Speaker 2: stick the other day, and it's like, we're not. I
50:47
Speaker 2: feel like over time, we've become a little bit more
50:49
Speaker 2: acclimatized to the idea that like, we are not quite
50:53
Speaker 2: as unique as we used to think, and I feel
50:55
Speaker 2: like maybe that opens us up to the possibility that
50:57
Speaker 2: there could be other amazing intelligent organisms out in other
51:01
Speaker 2: parts of the Solar System. But again, maybe that's my
51:03
Speaker 2: biology centered opinion, and so I don't feel like we
51:06
Speaker 2: would be devastated, especially because now we know there's exoplanets
51:11
Speaker 2: out there. There's like so much beyond our Solar System
51:16
Speaker 2: that like just playing the numbers game, like so many
51:18
Speaker 2: people have heard about the Drake equation and the updates
51:21
Speaker 2: to like, you know, how many planets are out there
51:23
Speaker 2: that are inhabitable zones. I don't think it would be
51:25
Speaker 2: as surprising to people now as it would have been
51:27
Speaker 2: hundreds of years ago. And I feel like any argument
51:29
Speaker 2: you could make about aliens causing like a panic and
51:32
Speaker 2: a collapse of society would apply less today and than
51:36
Speaker 2: they might have a couple hundred years ago.
51:37
Speaker 1: What do you think, Well, I think you're right that
51:40
Speaker 1: the Drake equation is going in the alien direction because
51:44
Speaker 1: all the updates increase the odds. But the skeptic in
51:48
Speaker 1: me says, there's still a lot of possibilities for very
51:51
Speaker 1: tiny numbers. Yes, it's true that now we know there
51:54
Speaker 1: are planets around lots of stars, and a lot of
51:57
Speaker 1: those planets are earth like, but it's still could be
52:01
Speaker 1: that it's very rare for life to begin, or for
52:04
Speaker 1: life to be complex or intelligent or technological. Those percentages
52:08
Speaker 1: could still be one over a trillion. We could still
52:11
Speaker 1: be alone. We have no data about that at all,
52:15
Speaker 1: So we can't make really any scientific statement about the
52:17
Speaker 1: probability for intelligent life. That's just belief, right, that's just philosophy,
52:22
Speaker 1: that's faith, that's hope. I'm on the same side of
52:25
Speaker 1: you of those you know, belief and hope and faith.
52:28
Speaker 1: But the skeptic in me says, we don't really know.
52:30
Speaker 1: And I also wonder if we can really put ourselves
52:34
Speaker 1: in the minds of somebody a thousand years ago and
52:37
Speaker 1: understand how they would react to this knowledge, because we
52:40
Speaker 1: see the world so differently than they do. I think
52:43
Speaker 1: it's probably impossible to honestly understand that. I did a
52:46
Speaker 1: little bit of research when I was running my book
52:48
Speaker 1: about historical writings about aliens, and I was surprised how
52:52
Speaker 1: often it came up. You know that people imagined aliens,
52:56
Speaker 1: and Kant, for example, wrote about aliens, you know they
53:00
Speaker 1: might see the world. And so I think also a
53:03
Speaker 1: thousand years ago people were more climatized to the world
53:07
Speaker 1: being mysterious. Like in our day to day lives, it's
53:11
Speaker 1: very little that happens that's ununderstandable. Like you see lightning, Yeah,
53:15
Speaker 1: we understand that weather it's hard to predict, but you know,
53:18
Speaker 1: the physics is known. You look out at the night
53:21
Speaker 1: sky and like, we know what stars are and all
53:23
Speaker 1: this kind of stuff. There are very few actual mysteries
53:26
Speaker 1: left in your everyday world. Still lots of big questions
53:29
Speaker 1: about the universe, but day to day the stuff that happens,
53:31
Speaker 1: we mostly understand it, and a thousand years ago your
53:34
Speaker 1: day was filled with mystery like why does this person
53:37
Speaker 1: get sick?
53:37
Speaker 2: And spontaneous generation.
53:39
Speaker 1: Spontaneous generation right, and like all sorts of stuff happened.
53:43
Speaker 1: So if somebody told you, like, oh, there are critters
53:45
Speaker 1: living around that star, you might be like, yeah, cool man.
53:47
Speaker 1: The world is weird and I learned stuff every day
53:50
Speaker 1: and none of it makes sense to me. So I
53:52
Speaker 1: think it's probably pretty hard to put ourselves in the
53:54
Speaker 1: shoes of somebody a thousand years ago. Though I would
53:57
Speaker 1: love to do that experiment to in choose an alien
53:59
Speaker 1: to air Aristotle or something.
54:02
Speaker 2: You are way too comfortable with human experimentation. To return
54:06
Speaker 2: to what we were talking about at the beginning of
54:08
Speaker 2: the episode.
54:09
Speaker 1: Y are you saying you wouldn't want to hear that
54:10
Speaker 1: podcast episode where an alien and Aristotle have a conversation.
54:14
Speaker 1: I mean you would be downloading that, wouldn't.
54:15
Speaker 2: You, sho Yeah, yeah, no, I would want to hear that. Yes,
54:19
Speaker 2: that would be interesting.
54:20
Speaker 1: All right, So thanks everybody for going along this ride.
54:23
Speaker 1: I do recommend this movie if you like fun movies
54:26
Speaker 1: and science fiction and aliens. It's a good ride. But
54:30
Speaker 1: don't go into it thinking that it's a deep philosophical
54:32
Speaker 1: exploration of whether our government has aliens and whether it
54:36
Speaker 1: actually would be dangerous for the government to tell us
54:39
Speaker 1: about it. But if you are somebody who works in
54:42
Speaker 1: the government and you have top security clearance and you
54:44
Speaker 1: know about aliens, I think you should spill the beans.
54:47
Speaker 2: Oh yes, and you can reach Daniel at questions at
54:50
Speaker 2: Daniel and Kelly dot or just right, Dear Daniel will
54:53
Speaker 2: know who it goes to. And yes, thanks Daniel for
54:56
Speaker 2: this fun episode on aliens.
54:58
Speaker 1: And let's hope that we can host the actual disclosure
55:00
Speaker 1: on a future episode.
55:02
Speaker 2: Because you and me we are on the same level
55:04
Speaker 2: as Aristotle. I'm sure we're going to be at the
55:06
Speaker 2: top of their list.
55:09
Speaker 1: All right. Thanks very much everyone, Thanks everybody for listening.
55:18
Speaker 1: Please go and do us a favor and rate the
55:21
Speaker 1: show on whatever podcast app you're using. It really helps
55:24
Speaker 1: people find us.
55:25
Speaker 2: Daniel and Kelly's Extraordinary Universe is edited by the amazing
55:29
Speaker 2: Matt Kesselman.
55:30
Speaker 1: He really is a wizard. You can also find us
55:33
Speaker 1: online on Blue Sky, Instagram, and x D and K Universe.
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Speaker 1: Come engage with us.
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Speaker 2: You can email us at questions at Danielankelly dot org.
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Speaker 2: We really do want to hear from you, and you.
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Speaker 1: Can find our website www dot danieland Kelly dot org,
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Speaker 1: where you'll also find an invitation to join our discord
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Speaker 1: where everybody comes and talks about the amazing.
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Speaker 2: Universe, and we also have the most amazing moderators. This
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Speaker 2: is an iHeart podcast. Thanks for joining us.